Sonoma State University

Senate Meeting Minutes: 9/23/22

Minutes

Associated Students
Sonoma State University
AS Senate Meeting
1:00 pm -Friday, September 23, 2022
Sonoma Valley Room- 2nd Floor Student Center

Agenda

Call to Order & reading of the Land acknowledgement-
The meeting started at 1:00 pm

  • Roll Call- Taylor Rozek, Yasmin Esquivel, Tucker Jensen, Nataly Hernandez, Bryan Burton, Erik Dickson, Mike Lee, Mariah Atkins, Mario Perez, Christina Gamboa, Clayton Trent, Curtis Manely, Karen Moranski, Victoria Lopez, Monir Ahmed, Celine Rubalcava, Brenda Guzman Hernandez, Melissa Nelson, Gerald Jones were present.
  • Public Comment – pursuant to California Education Code 89306, the AS Senate provides this time for any member of the public to address the AS Senate on any item affecting higher education. Pursuant to California Education Code 89306(b), each speaker will be allowed no more than three (3) minutes to address the AS Senate
  • Liaison Report to the Senate (Discussion)
    •  Academic Senate Designee- Designee reports:
      • Chill Chat, for everyone to come together and discuss about specific issues, like a student panel, around 4 students to sit on the panel and get a conversation going with the current students at SSU
      • Issues with Student Advising, concerns, students(First Years) feeling there is not enough advisement from the advisors, trouble finding their advisors
  • University President’s Designee - Designee Jones and President Lee discussed student involvement, budget plan, including the structure deficit and how to close that gap. There have been a few meetings of a group to see all ideas and suggestions to effectively close the deficit and changing methods and learning on campus. If there is any concerns or issues, let the President know. The orientation program, under CAASE, there will be an orientation work group, to improve our communication and make the upcoming students feel comfortable and recommend the orientation meeting to meet 3 years in advance to meet and discuss for the students.
  • Reports (Discussion)​
    • AS President- President reported: that for the members of the Board to communicate with her,  with certain issues such as students missing classes, not able to register, etc, so she can discuss  with the Senate, so we can improve it.
    • Executive Vice President- some students brought up the concern with advisors are not  connecting with them, trouble finding their advisors as well. There are also 15 RSVP members  on the RSVP program and orientation next Wednesday and introduction as well.
    • Vice President of Finance- We got some numbers and headcount;
      1. They have collected $887,569 (from a budgeted amount of $1,699,753) in student fees, our major  revenue source.
        1. Remember AS collects it fee each semester
      2. The $887,569 represents 52.22% of the amount our budget is based on; which means
      3. We need a Fall to Spring Retention rate of over 90% to ensure we have enough revenue to  fund all the items in our budget.
      4. We will be keeping a very close eye on these figures in the next few weeks and I may be  asking the programs to slow spending in order to ensure we have enough revenue to make it  through the year.
        1. -90% fall retention, close eye on head counts, slow spending if it goes over
    • Senator of Diversity - tabling and recruitment for RSVP, contact with professors of partnerships  and more student involvement and concerns with professors not using their preferred pronouns  and not feeling comfortable in class.
    • JUMP Representative- Saturday volunteer event, upcoming events: first 2 events are full,  Animal Shelter, Bayer Farm, Study Buddies looking for volunteers, Special Olympics(Tuesdays  6-8 p.m), working on events for hunger awareness week.
    • ASP Representative-
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      • We had 3 events over the past two week, 1 happening right now. Chalk the Plaza, 10 clubs came, $7 each students, currently Campus MovieFest is going on, the movies will be premiered on October 3rd, Conchas and Culture, Don’t Worry Darling event, and deep in programming for next semester.
    • Children's School Representative-
      • Meeting with Becky Sandavol from Career Center(possible partnership)
      • ELLME, hiring students to be registered for behavioral technicians , testing to receive certification.
      • Hired 5 students already in the organization, next step to connect.
      • JUMP, Marisela, connecting with CS to partner with Study Buddies and check in with next semester as well, since it is pretty busy and packed.
    • Basic Needs Representative-
      • CALFRESH
      • Screening for Calfresh
      • Assistant for CalFresh
      • Sept: intake meetings, LOBOS pantry, log of student data, emails, alerts about the pantry,
        vendors
      • 16 volunteers, revised the hours for LOBOS pantry, serving 405 plus students that has coming into the pantry, 2075 items taking from the pantry, in process of restock, hygiene items, meat items,
      • Events;POPUP during NOv2-4, school supply drive with Greek life in October,
      • Marketing with class reps, lunch hours, orientation weeks, aprons to promote LOBOS pantry
      • Being updating with restocking the pantry and needs of donations
      • Lack of CalFresh applications has not passed in the Sonoma County
    • Executive Director-
      • 1500 pounds of food stocking in the pantry, where the students and people in the county are doing applications of Calfresh
      • County coming to campus for CALFresh outreach week
      • Reminder for Administrative to check in with the desk so they know who is in the suite, working with AS Committee to search for the intern, chartering more clubs, checking vouching, observing deadlines along with clubs, Business, etc.
      • Hiring, since pickup in pace, candidate for calfresh application, Business Office
      • Concerns with staff graduation in AS so working on hiring and critical points are met and covered, new faces coming in, 1⁄3 of student population, planning in advancement, payroll going up a little bit
      • Leadership- tuition, proposal for FC for rates at Children’s School and address, staff pay rates with the Children’s school to keep up to speed and make sure that the employees are healthy and well paid.
      • Meeting with DR. Jones, partnership with CS, and Dean, participating in the school, suggestion of new facility
  • Business
    • AS-CR 005.22.23 Budget Update and Consultation (Discussion)
      • Discussion- Dr. Lee, CSU Chancellors, letter of report of enrollment because decline of enrollment has made a deficit, so they asked provided a 5 year plan and multi year enrollment and budget planning: The Chancellor has given them a deadline of Nov 14, 2022 to send the plan out to fix the current issue at hand, which is to eliminate the deficit by fiscal year 2024-2025. After the submission, SSU has to give an update every 6 months.
      • Strategic Enrollment Plan- it has a deadline for the next 2 school years due to higher graduation rates than student enrollment and builds up from that and keeps graduation retention higher as well. The big concern is a better marketing plan, and increases yield rates, when students deposit to May- Fall, losing students interest and enrollment(large amount of students), while orientation group is starting to plan in advance
      • New Student Recruitment- more increase in full deposits in Fall 2022, during COVID, local enrollment increased as students stayed home, and post COVID, need to increase the number and yield rates of local enrollment and new students on campus. Ideas that have been helping are recruitment scholarships, and awarding scholarships, specifically for transfer students and improving the CSU website, and new communication tools, software , so keeping track from inquiry to first class on campus. They are also working on retaining students and re-enrolling underserved students, and closing the equity gap. However, there is still a gap with underserved students retention. Major goal is to remove barriers to graduate and enroll in SSU. If there is something that is a barrier, but not looked into, let the Administration know about the concern. Dr. Lee’s goal is to have the whole university aware and part of the solution to keep the budget and savings close but also close the gap of the deficit we are currently facing. The strategies to enhance the revenue are : Enrollment: move summer session to state side, increase self-support programs, ending impaction for high demand programs but making sure the program is well paid. Increasement of Rental Revenue: increase use of housing, partnering with local colleges to house students at SSU, and increase summer conferences; Increase other Revenues: grant revenue, private support;
      • Expense Reduction Suggestions: people, facilities, programs and operations
    • AS-CR 006.22.23 Revised Audit & Rules Committee Code (ACTION)
      • Discussion- In the AR Committee, we made a few changes in the Code, Advisor changing on the committee, Completion of Duties, keeping AS Senators to do their duties, responsibilities, warnings for the people who are not fulfilling their duties and responsibilities, changing sub sections. Suggestion Amendments- suggested to AS Pro staff, states who is appointing the member and make it clear, also making it clear that Prostaff can not directly remove the officer for
      • Action- VP motion to amend the revised AR Code Membership to change AS Professional staff instead of AS Pro-staff, Senator Rubalcava seconded that motion
      • VP motioned to amend the revised Code and Senator Rubalacava seconded the motion
  • Items for the Good of the Order
    • N/A
  • Adjournment -Meeting adjourned at: 2:25 pm

Posted in accordance with the Gloria Romero Open Meeting Law of 2000 by: President Yasmine Esquivel

The Associated Students of Sonoma State University acknowledges Indigenous Peoples as the traditional stewards of the land. Let it be acknowledged that the Associated Students and Sonoma State University are located within the traditional homelands of the indigenous peoples collectively known as Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo.